Michigan

Jayne Rowse, left, and her partner April Deboer, both of Hazel Park, Mich., hold hands during a news conference Wednesday in Detroit. Rowse and Deboer filed a lawsuit to try to overturn restrictions on adoption by same-sex partners in Michigan. Michigan's ban on gay marriage remains intact after a pair of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, though opponents may have picked up new arguments to challenge the state's voter-approved law, experts said.
(AP file photo)

As Michigan awaits U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman’s highly anticipated decision on the state’s ban on gay marriage, much of the focus has been on arguments concerning how children fare when raised by same-sex parents as opposed to in a traditional nuclear family.

To be clear, we vehemently disagree with the research and opinions advanced by the state’s experts in support of Michigan’s gay-marriage ban, namely that children fare worse in same-sex households. Indeed, with one expert, University of Texas Professor Mark Regnerus, his own university released a statement distancing itself from his research and testimony.

Here is what we do know and what is deeply personal to us and many Michigan families. While the state has tried to defend its ban on gay marriage by turning this into a choice between same-sex parents and the traditional family, to thousands of children in Michigan, this is not nor will it ever be a choice.

For example, at present, we have a case pending in the Michigan Supreme Court where two women married in Canada, jointly chose to specifically conceive a child into this union, and raised this child as parents until their relationship unfortunately soured. For a period of time, this child’s mothers shared custody like many parents do after a breakup, until the child’s biological mother decided to end all contact between this child and his other mother. This was done without ever giving a reason, or even questioning the fitness of the other mother.

Because this child has same-sex parents, his non-biological mother and he have no rights or ability to protect this parent-child bond, expressly because of Michigan’s ban on gay marriage. If he had been adopted by heterosexual parents or was the child of heterosexual parents, this would not be the case.

You see, this is the reality of Michigan’s gay marriage ban for many Michigan children. This child has a parent who loves him and who cared for him during the important and critical first four years of his life. His choice is not between a traditional nuclear family and same sex parents, and for the last two years — and only because of the sexual orientation of his parents — he is being deprived of the love and care and even financial support of two parents and the mother he has bonded with since birth.

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Pyler v Doe that children “can neither affect their parents’ conduct nor their own status” when holding that children cannot be punished or adversely impacted by the decisions of their parents. Likewise, Michigan’s ban on gay marriage isn’t a rhetorical debate about what types of families are better or whether sexual orientation has anything to do with this; it is about ending a law that violates the most basic constitutional rights of Michigan families and on a daily basis, and leads to real-world consequences that harm families.

We cannot state this anymore emphatically or eloquently than the original judge in our custody case, awaiting decision in the Michigan Supreme Court:

“I’m not very proud to be a citizen of the state of Michigan right now on this issue... I want to make some findings in this case. I believe that the best interests of G.M. would be served by him having a relationship with [G.M’s non-biological mother]. It’s clear that they had bonded, and that to sever that relationship, I don’t believe is in the best interests of G.M. but, again, the Michigan constitution and the Michigan statutory scheme prevents me from granting her the relief she is requesting. If I had the power to do so I would.”

Ben Ashmore, born and raised in Ferndale and educated at the University of Michigan, is the president and chairman of the National Family Civil Rights Center in Washington, D.C. At present, the NFCRC has asked the Michigan Supreme Court, on behalf of G.M., to invalidate Michigan’s gay marriage ban in Stankevich v Milliron. The Michigan Supreme Court has not yet ruled.

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